Pool Repair and Rehab, Part 1

Poor Hub. He doesn't like to swim, and he only gets in the pool on the very hottest of days. And yet, he's always the one stuck with bringing the pool up to speed for the season. That's a wearying job during easy years.

This is not an easy year.

This is what the pool should look like by now.

But this happened last August, during a nasty wind storm. It blew a chair from the back deck, into the soft-side of the pool, and made a nice long slice in it. Officially, the pool liner (the most expensive part of the pool, even moreso than the pump or the heater) was toast- unreparable because of the location and length of the hole (the chair leg cut through 2 layers of vinyl).

So we drained the pool 2/3 down as always and then let it sit over the winter as always. And then we let it sit in the thaw as always. And then we let it sit... unlike always, assuming that we were going to replace the entire liner in the spring.

We still hadn't bought the replacement when The Hub had A Thought. I've mentioned The Hub's Genius Notions before, and the fact that his notions nearly always work out. This one may or may not work, but it was certainly worth a shot. He had an idea for patching the pool with heavy vinyl purchased from one of the local Hutterite Colonies. So a week or so ago, we drove out to Glendale Colony and got the supplies.

But before any repairs could be attempted, the pool had to be drained and cleaned.

This is what it looked like yesterday- dirty, disgusting, slimy (though not smelly). It was almost physically painful to see the water looking like that.

 The Hub, who does not swim, who does not even enjoy watching people swim, borrowed a big pump

 with a big hose.

And then he put on his boots and got in, guiding the hose to the largest accumulations of leaves and sticks and dirt (and things I don't even want to contemplate).

 It was kind of fun to watch.

 It soon became apparent that the mess was stuck pretty solidly to the pool liner. So we added more water, and an entire bottle of Dawn dish soap (hey, if it's good enough for penguins and raw fleeces, it's good enough for my pool).

That helped, though there was still a lot of stuck-on gunk. (And just so you'll know, I volunteered to get in and do the sweeping and scrubbing, but was turned down).

 The Grands thoroughly enjoyed watching the pump make lots of bubbles. Lots and lots of bubbles.

 The big pump left a couple of inches of water in the bottom of the pool, so it was replaced with a much smaller pump.

 It's still not clean, but man, it looks better than it did.

The Son helped hold the sides up so The Hub could scrub some more. It's looking more and more like my pool. Empty, but still my pool, and not a Mosquito Hatchery.

So, tomorrow, more scrubbing, and maybe some actual possible hope-it-works repair.

Stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed.